“It’s the same thing. I know the things they have said about me, and that they say still. Or if they don’t say them they imply them, which is worse. No, I refuse to be your hostess; also I consider you ought to get somebody of more importance, some woman of established social standing, of high rank, if you want the ball to be a big success. There are plenty of people who do like me, of course, but at least they know nothing about me, who I am or where I come from, and though that may not count with the majority of men and women in our large circle of acquaintance, it counts a good deal with some--they become inquisitive after a time and start making inquiries in all sorts of directions. Mrs. Hartsilver and her friend Yootha Hagerston are making inquiries of that sort now. Do you know that they have gone so far as to instruct a personal inquiry agency to find out all about me?” “I did hear something of the sort,” Stapleton said. “But why worry? There is nothing it can say against you.” “You mean the agency?” “Yes.” “But it can invent things, and readily will if it thinks it worth while.” “Lies can’t be proved to be truth,” La Planta said, who for some moments had not spoken. “Indeed!” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson exclaimed with a little laugh. “Perhaps when you grow older you will change your opinion,” she added. “You are more ingenuous than I thought you were, Archie!” There were several visitors present, and soon conversation drifted to other topics. After a little while, however, somebody inquired, turning to Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson: “You were speaking some minutes ago of Mrs. Hartsilver. Was anything ever discovered about her husband--I mean, why he put an end to himself?” “I believe nothing. If anything had been discovered I should probably have heard, as I know many people who were friends of his. A verdict of ‘suicide while temporarily insane’ was returned at the inquest, if you remember.” “Yes,” the woman who had inquired said thoughtfully. “Yet he was one of the last men one would have looked upon as insane. I should have called him absolutely ‘all there.’” “You never know,” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson replied, pouring out a cup of tea. “People one considers sane seem nowadays to go mad in the most astonishing way. Look at the terrible list of suicides during the last year of the war, beginning with Lord Hope-Cooper and Viscount Molesley. Of course Madame Leonora Vandervelt’s tragedy was not so surprising--she had had such a remarkable career--but poor Vera Froissart’s suicide gave us all a terrible shock.” “You knew her intimately, didn’t you?” “My dear, she was one of my closest friends. And the jury pretended that she had died of ‘shock!’ Girls of that age don’t die of shock. My belief is that she had some private love affair and--but there, I must not say more.” “You don’t mean that?”